Playing Go - the Rules

Do not let a pastime upset true affection
You can still accord with kind and say "I win."
The contest over, black and white are collected into two boxes
And where is there any trace of loss or gain?

The 11th century Chinese statesman Wang An-Shih

The Ideal Game

Traditionally, there is a table of finest kaya wood, some
45cm by 42cm square, 15cm thick and with four short, intricately
carven legs. On the table top a grid of black lines, 19 in each
direction, is marked, with slight spots at the hoshi
points. Two plain, highly polished bowls of mulberry wood, some 14cm
in diameter and 12cm high, with lids which when removed can act as
smaller boards, sit nearby. One bowl contains 181 round black
"stones", made of nachi-guro slate mined in the Wakayama
Prefecture of Japan. The other holds 180 white "stones" shaped from
the shell of the hamaguri clam. These "stones" will be
approximately 2cm in diameter, with black slightly larger to take into
account differing optical effects, and something under 1cm thick. They
are usually convex on both sides, though they may be flat on one side.

In a formal game, players kneel on either side of the board,
although in a less formal setting it is permissable to cross one's
legs. The weaker player addresses the stronger and makes the
traditional request for a game: "Will you teach me?" The stronger
assents and takes the bowl containing the white stones. The game
commences. It takes place in comparative silence, each player taking
the time he (or she: some of the finest players are female) needs to
make each move. Players may smoke, and a maid brings tea. When the
game has been finished, and the points counted, each player clears
away his own stones, thanking the other for what he has learnt. At
this time, discussion may take place on what has happened during the
game.

The Rules

Go is a game of territory. The stones are played on the
intersections of the lines, and once played, are not moved unless
captured. A player's territory consists of the intersections upon
which there are no stones and which are surrounded by stones of his
colour. A point is gained for each intersection and (assuming the most
conventional, Japanese, method of counting) also for each stone of the
other colour which has been captured during the game. A stone is connected to
another stone if they are touching each other along the line. A stone or group
of stones is captured by surrounding it with stones of the other
colour on all the lines around it.

That's it, basically.

There are three rules about where you cannot play. You cannot, of
course, play on top of another stone. You cannot capture a single stone which
has in its last move captured one of yours - this is called
ko. And you cannot "commit suicide", i.e. play in a place where
the stone you had played would immediately be captured, without your
opponent playing.

Playing

One of the major benefits that Go has over games like Chess is that
it possesses a handicap system which makes it possible for a good
player to play a very weak one and both players still have an
interesting and challenging game. This works by putting black stones
on the hoshi points before the game starts - thus giving black,
the weaker player, a framework on which to build. These points are
marked on the board with a small black spot, and there are usually
nine marked on a standard 19x19 board. However, the number of points
actually used can vary from 2 up to 13 depending on the comparative
strengths of the players.

A group of stones can be described as "alive" when it has two
"eyes"; in other words, when it is a fully connected group and there
are two places in it where the opponent cannot play without committing
suicide. If there were only one such place, it would not be alive,
because the opponent could surround it, then play in the "eye" and
capture the group. But if there are two, it is safe.

A game ends by mutual consent, in effect. When a player feels there
is nothing further for them to do on the board, they "pass". If their
opponent thinks there is something left to do, they can do it, and the
first player can then respond if they wish. Usually, however, they
will decide to "pass" at the same time.

Normally a game is played on a 19x19 board but a beginner will
usually start on a 9x9 board, moving on to 13x13 when they have gained
some more experience, then finally 19x19 for the real fun once they
are feeling reasonably confident.

Concluding

The rules of Go are very simple to pick up. Because it is so
simple, however, the outcomes can be very beautiful and very
complicated - the sheer number of possible moves at any point is so
high that a computer cannot "force" a win by just predicting all the
moves possible, because the power required is far, far more than the
power available in any machine currently available. The game is,
therefore, very "human", played by pattern-matching and intuition. It
expands the mind by concentrating it.

Three of the "five Confucian virtues" are considered to be applied
to Go - they are li, propriety; chih, wisdom; and
jen, human-heartedness, or kindness.

There are several good sources of further information listed on our links page. Or even
better, come to our meetings.

This was written by Jenny Radcliffe for Durham Go Club, largely from material on the website of the
British Go Association or from the 2001 Go Players' Almanac.

As of 2016, AlphaGo has now shown that computers are capable of beating humans at Go.